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The New Farm recently wrote an article on their website about us. It does a great job of capturing most of what we do in one well-written article–which can sometimes be a difficult task! Click here to read it.
Thanks to Susie Chang and The New Farm for the article!
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The rains have finally come. And so did the lightning on Thursday. We sent an eager group of 6th grade volunteers home that morning and were left to finish the Thursday harvest alone. Ben and Becky came out from the office to help. Becky courageously put on some dirty, unclaimed, under-the-tent socks. And Ben swapped his striped button-down for Monica’s small tee-shirt and managed to squeeze his big feet into a size 8 rubber boots. What dedication! Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Four years ago as I was just about to leave The Food Project to move out to a little farm town in Western MA, the staff took a few minutes out of a Wednesday morning staff meeting to practice our ‘elevator speech’. This was an exercise designed to make people think about how they described The Food Project.
As we practiced our talks in front of the rest of the staff, the laughter got stronger as people had one minute to fumble through their earnest descriptions. “Harvesting…youth development…straight talk…lead remediation…breaking through barriers, neighbors, hundreds of thousands of pounds, work in shelters, chefs, markets, CSA, leadership training…” Evidently, depending upon what role you had with the organization, the one minute elevator speech could vary from a passionate talk on youth leadership to a ramble on great future plans for Boston’s entire food system. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Last Thursday at the Dudley Farmer’s Market an older woman approached the stall and asked “Who grows this food?” D.I.R.T crew member Rony answered “We do, we grow it here and in Lincoln.” She looked at him, shook her head in disbelief, and declared, “No you don’t… you don’t grow this food.”
I was watching this unfold, curious to see how Rony would respond. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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I’ve heard that around the holidays, the management of UPS are asked to “brown up”. This entails donning the ubiquitous brown uniform, and going to work helping with the core function of that organization, shipping and delivering packages.
Today Becky and I “greened up”. This isn’t a phrase we use here at TFP, but i’m hoping it finds its way into more widespread usage. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Often persons, usually women, stop by our office to inquire if they can get food. It’s an obvious assumption because the word “Food” is in our name. So the dialogue usually goes like this: I live in the community; I have children to feed and we don’t have any food. We usually say “We don’t distribute food.” And then the person will say “But isn’t this the food place?” Then we say, “Yes we are; however, we grow food and donate it to soup kitchens and shelters so you’ll have to contact them directly or call the Food Source Hotline, and here’s the number 1-800-645-8333.”
Well, you ask, what does this have to do with macaroni and cheese? Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Last week I sent out the most recent issue of E-BLAST, the email newsletter of our BLAST Youth Initiative, to over 800 people and organizations. E-BLAST targets people interested in youth, food, land, and agriculture and provides them with information on conference opportunities, funding sources, interesting articles, training opportunities, and useful resources related to these issues. It’s a great way to keep people informed about these things and connected to each other and the great work going on throughout the world.
Both times that I have done the E-BLAST so far, I’ve been amazed about how much work is going on that relates to secure and sustainable food systems and youth development. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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“This is the true story of nine strangers, picked to live in a house and have their lives taped to find out what happens when people stop being polite and start getting real.”
No, it wasn’t MTV’s Real World, it was a weekend with the BLAST Youth Leadership Cadre, a top-notch group of 9 young adults from across North America working to create change in our food system. Click here for the rest of this entry…
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Just a friendly reminder that you can download our weekly CSA Newsletter right over here.
Not sure what a CSA is? No problem, we’ve got a good explanation for you.
You don’t have to be a CSA member to download the newsletter, they’re available for all. They’re quick 1-page reads, and always contain a recipe as well as vegetable features, farm news and happenings, and updates on our Summer Youth Program.
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Usually weekends like the cadre kickoff seem longer. Having been involved with the logistics of bringing a group like the cadre together, being able to be “just a member of the group” was certainly a new and exciting experience. I can see that as a participant it’s easy to miss a lot of the stress that gets put on the organizers.
Overall the weekend was a great mix of socializing, hard work, sharing, and planning. Click here for the rest of this entry…
